Adopt–A–Doc Program Launches "Building Medical Homes"

The Adopt–A–Doc Program in the Department of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine has launched a pilot project called Building Medical Homes to promote the care and services pediatric patients receive.

Funded in 2001 by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Adopt–A–Doc is a community–based program to improve health care for children in New Haven and the surrounding communities. The program provides pediatric residents with an understanding of the importance of social, cultural and economic factors in the health and functioning of children. It emphasizes intensive neighborhood involvement to help pediatric residents become culturally competent and skillful in their interactions with families and community resources that serve children. The program also seeks to improve the physicians’ expertise as advocates for children, particularly those living in poverty.

One of the goals of Building Medical Homes is to increase access to preventive medical care. “Despite the recognized importance of primary preventive health care, a large proportion of children in Connecticut do not have an identified primary source of care and do not see a physician for regular preventive care,” said Brian Forsyth, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and the creator of Adopt–A–Doc. According to state statistics only 54 percent of eligible children in Connecticut received preventive health care in 2001.

Preventive health care services for children are optimally provided with an ongoing health care provider/child/family relationship of mutual trust and respect. Because of the continuity of these relationships, the settings in which children receive such health care are often referred to as “medical homes.”

Building Medical Homes strives to also provide greater understanding of factors that affect families’ use of medical homes and to explore ways in which collaborations between medical and community–based organizations and services might better promote use of medical homes. This project is exploratory in nature and is intended to contribute to the development of the health care component of the First Years First initiative of the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, in which collaboration among medical, educational and social services promotes the health and development of young children.

Diana Edmonds, community coordinator for the Adopt–A–Doc program, will conduct the project under the supervision of Forsyth, who is also medical director of the Pediatric Primary Care Center at Yale–New Haven Hospital. Edmonds’ specific objectives are to gain greater understanding from parents of why they do not have a medical home for their children, and to facilitate maintenance of a medical home; identify systems–level barriers that are considered surmountable for achieving greater use of medical homes and identify key organizations and individuals that can promote greater use of medical homes in the New Haven community.

Forsyth and Edmonds will visit the homes of 36 children who do not have a medical home. The team will develop a list of key stakeholders and others who can contribute pertinent information on barriers and facilitators of medical homes. They will then develop a final report summarizing their findings and give recommendations for “Bridging Gaps.”

In addition to The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, The Connecticut Health Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundation and the New Haven Enterprise Community have supported the efforts of the Adopt–A–Doc Program.